Gridiron Grumblings

Gridiron Grumblings is an e-zine first launched in 1995 with a focus on NFL football. As an early example of fantasy sports e-zines, it became a model for future similar sites. cn|date=October 2008

History

The e-zine was founded by John Georgopoulos and first launched in 1995, using the new medium of the Internet to focus on a percieved public desire for no holds barred NFL commentary. The site subsequently won several awards for journalistic excellence.cn|date=September 2008

As the internet advertising bubble burst in 1998, the company switched its focus from providing NFL commentary to the growing trend of fantasy football predictions and analysis. Unlike other sites which were dispensing "Start 'em, Sit 'em" advice,clarify and instead of simple lists and fan forums, Gridiron Grumblings produced strategy articles. Each article was written with the express purpose of spurring the reader to draw his own conclusions about the best players to draft, how to handle league controversies, the best way to run an auction draft, etc. As founder John Georgopoulos noted, the site had become "Socratic" in nature. cn|date=October 2008

In January 2007, Gridiron Grumblings became Sports Grumblings to better reflect its coverage of all the major fantasy sports categories.

Innovation

Gridiron Grumblings has contributed original concepts to the fantasy football industry, including:

*Internet audio broadcasts, which it produced as early as 1996, in a one-hour audio broadcast format. Dubbed "WGRD Radio", there were 117 episodes recorded through September 2001, including owner John Georgopoulos' emotional first-person account of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. This was the final broadcast of WGRD Radio. [cite news | first=Thomas | last=Bleier| coauthors=Eric Steinert | title=Net.People: The Personalities and Passions Behind the Web Sites | date=2000 | publisher=Cyberage Books | url = | work = | pages = 101 | accessdate = | language = ] In 2004, WGRD Radio was reincarnated as "Gridiron Grumblings Live!", a two-hour live broadcast covering fantasy football, the NFL and other topical events. [cite web|url=http://www.radiogrumblings.com|title=Radio Grumblings]

*Individual Defensive Players (IDPs) in standard fantasy football leagues. While a staple of fantasy football drafts today, the inclusion of IDPs in 1996-97 was considered FFL heresy.

*Fantasy Forecast Rating System was the first system to be used across all positions, enabling the absolute valuation of players. The FFRS has been used to rank offensive, defensive and special teams players.

*Consistency Rankings was a metric designed to describe the degree to which a set of player performance varied-- either over the course of a season or a career. In essence, Gridiron Grumblings was able to apply a Coefficient of Variance to fantasy play.

*Age Variance, a metric to define the statistical effect of player age on performance, by position.

Notable contributors

Sports Grumblings has been home to several of the fantasy industry's award winning writers:

:Greg Kellogg - Winner of the 2004 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for "Snap, Crackle & Pop")cite web|url=http://www.fswa.org/press_archive.htm|title=FSWA.org - Awards ]

:John Georgopoulos - Winner of the 2006 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for "Fantasy Forecast - The Strategy Series")

:John Rakowski - Winner of the 2007 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for "Snap, Crackle & Pop")

Affiliates

Sports Grumblings has also launched a 24-hour live streaming sports talk radio affiliate website, Radio Grumblings, with content on all sports covered by Sports Grumblings.

References

"net.people: The People and Passions behind the Web Sites", by Thomas E. Bleier and Eric C. Steinert (May 2000)"Yahoo! Internet Life, November 1999""Internet Underground, Vol. 2, Issue 2, Jan. 1997"

External links

* [http://www.GridironGrumblings.com GridironGrumblings.com]
* [http://www.SportsGrumblings.com SportsGrumblings.com]
* [http://www.RadioGrumblings.com RadioGrumblings.com]